NCIS: Dead Robot Alligator
Sat Jul 14 2033 Absolution - Laboratories [ The Absolution ] The science sector of the Absolution is a sterile, cold space in which all manner of technomacabre experiments occur behind sealed doors. Thick, clear walls quarantine necessary areas, bridged by corridors with lit walkways. Unless the holoscreens are up, anyone walking through the area can see into any of the lab spaces -- some might prove utterly boring, and some might contain sights that cannot be unseen. The workspaces are largely soundproofed, rendering the walkways almost eerily quiet, save for the footsteps of others and the occasional hisses of doors. ---- External ship broadcasts for this room are ON Type +shiphelp for help ---- Contents: Carjack Tiny Robotic Honey Bee Obvious exits: leads to Absolution - Medical Bay. leads to Absolution - Deck Twenty. Contrail stalks into the laboratories, dragging behind her a bunch of pink spotlights on wheels. They have been tagged with CONFISCATED stickers. She says aloud, "Maybe one of our fine, fine engineers can make a death ray out of these or something," and she scowls at the spotlights. Carjack -technically- is a doctor, but who nitpicks over such distinctions these days? Right now he's hunched over a terminal as little colored specks zip across it in various patters that he's using the controls to move a little panel of some sort to smack them back the other way. Either this is some sort of elaberate means of showing what goes on at a microparticle level... or he's playing some weird ass computer game. Buzzkill is sitting at one of the workspaces, pieces of some unfortunate gumby's transformation cog laid out in front of her. She's been taking it apart and putting it back together over and over again for the past few hours, memorizing every part of it, but she stops when Contrail comes in dragging all those lights with her. "A death ray? With those? Doubtful." Contrail espies Carjack. He made a Triple-Changer out of her! ...and no, that is not a euphemism. She sighs and admits, "Probably, not, and I don't really need a death ray at the moment, anyway." She lies. Of course she needs a death ray. Everyone needs a death ray at all times. "What I /need/ is an antimatter extraction device and some pieces of evidence analysed." At the end of the chain of pink spotlights, there is a shoddy dead green Alligatorcon on a cart. Carjack holds up a hand. "Hold that thought..." Blips a few more colored specks about the screen before closing the terminal window and leaving whatever it was to run (or sit in pause) as he turns his chair and hops out of it. "Now what was that about evidence being analyzed?" Analyzing evidence seems like just the sort of tedious thing Buzzkill loves but she can't appear /too/ eager about it, it would totally ruin the reputation of being a serious, fun-hating monster she's been working so hard for. "I suppose I can be of assistance." She steps away from her workspace and eyeballs the chain of spotlights Contrail is carrying. And then the Alligatorcon at the end. "....Is that an alligator?" That's okay Buzzkill, likely Carjack's mad doctor-ness will make up for any stick in the mudness Contrail deadpans, "Yeah. It's an Alligatorcon. I wrestled it to death." This is 100% factual. "I need someone to figure out where it was made and who made it, if at all possible." The quality on the Alligatorcon is really bad, even though it was the control unit for the rest of the Alligatorcon drones. (They were all really shoddy.) There are also some bugs stuck on it because she ended up strapping it to her car mode to cart it away from New York off to a safe launch site. "I also have some armour fragments from a tiny Galvatron clone." She holds out some scraps of purple armour. "Need the same analysis on them, too. I'm trying to figure out if the incidents are connected or not, and who is behind them." Buzzkill just stares at Contrail, completely straight-faced, when she tells her of her wrestling prowess. "I see." The shards of armor ellicit a sigh from her. Tiny Galvatron clones? As if this world wasn't crazy enough, tiny Galvatron clones are actually a thing. She looks back over at the Alligatorcon. Then Carjack. Then the alligator again. "I am calling 'dibs' on the alligator. It's official now." Contrail waves her hand dismissively and explains, "Oh, the spotlights used to belong to Communications Officer Discotheque, but he kept leaving them around the Intel Office. I kept tripping over piles of spotlights, so I had to cut him off and confiscate some of his stash." She frowns. "He's just going to bring in a dozen more next week. I don't know where he keeps getting them." Since Buzzkill has called dibs on the Alligatorcon, she holds out the purple scraps of armour from the tiny Galvatron clone to Carjack, and she explains, "He put up a pretty good fight against Grimlock before retreating. The Alligatorcons appeared after he left." The call of dibs doesn't really upset Carjack much, if the eagerness he snags the armor chunks from Contrail is any indication. Forensics are a bit more his line of work, anyways. "Someone has the impetiousness to try and clone Galvatron? The jerks. Let me see those." He flips down his visor and holds one chunk up in front of it even as he's walking towards a work station. "How about weaponry? Though I doubt anyone could match Galvatron's sheer output save Retardimus Prime." Buzzkill grabs a hold of the cart the Alligatorcon is laying in and wheels it over towards the workstation she was at previously before pushing it over and dumping the robotic beast's body onto the floor. In a matter of seconds, she's set up a nice little workspace around it; tools of all kinds laid out in a very specific manner. She rolls it over onto it's back and takes a laser saw to it, cutting it right down the middle like you would if you were dissecting a frog or a pig or a cat or whatever it is they make kids dissect nowadays. "How many of these things were there?" Contrail says dryly, "I try to avoid being shot by Galvatron, and I did not antagonise the clone enough for it to shoot me, so I cannot really compare them. It appeared to be doing decent damage to Grimlock. I will note that the tiny clone was missing a nose and seemed to have shark-teeth, so it was not a perfect scale model of Galvatron by any means. It seems awfully coincidental for a tiny Galvatron to show up, and then a day later for a fleet of ships to end up possessed by a Galvatron AI, but I'm not going to draw any connections without proof, and if they aren't connected..." She shrugs. "If the Empire has many different enemies, it must be doing something right." Contrail smirks. Then she rubs her chin and admits, "A horde of them. I was unable to get an exact count due to the Autobots destroying several. They all stopped dead after I tackled this one, though." Spinister is standing near the entrance of the lab, Singe in tow. Hairsplitter has been taking notes on this meeting of the minds for a future PowerMaster Point presentation. Hairsplitters scowls at the spreadsheet he has open, as the equations built in won't accomodate the word 'horde.' Carjack gives it a dismissive wave over his shoulder. "More enemies just means more fools we get to grind under the wheels of our war machine." His right arm extends his mult-tool unit and deploys a key-shaft that he plugs into his workstation and gives a few turns, causing the entire station to 'transform' as it shifts console and work space around into a different arrangement and a rack of various extremely high tech and 'nerdy' instruments lowers from an overhead compartment. Removing the key-shaft and switching it for a vicegrip, Carjack clamps onto one of the armor shards and holds it out, grabs a device from the overhead and pulls it down on a multi-jointed workarm. "Let's see what the compositronic analyzer has to say about this." He sweeps the scanner over the armor shard a few times, long scrolls of extensive technobabble flitting across the terminal screen after a few moments. Buzzkill scowls at Contrail's story, particularly the part about the Autobots. "Typical foolish Autobot behaviour, destroying something they don't yet understand. I assume they didn't atleast /try/ to recover any?" She shakes her head and pries the Alligatorcon's chest apart with a crowbar (everyone should have a crowbar, they really do come in handy) exposing it's robotic 'guts' as it were. "How do they expect to learn anything this way? This is exactly the sort of thing that makes them so terrible."She puts down the crowbar and replaces it with a scalpel, using it to sever the internal mechanics from the body, pull them out piece by piece, and arrange them on the floor in the order she takes them out in. Already Buzzkill has noticed a few things, the one that sticks out most in her mind right now being how easy it is to pull this thing apart. "....This is the shoddiest construction I've ever seen," she mumbles, eyeing a crooked seam that just barely holds two pieces of armor together. "I have seen blind, double-amputee robot monkeys do better welding than this." Also, the Alligatorcon smells really bad. That is easy to notice. Seriously, it is awful. Contrail ponders and says, "To be on the safe side, I would assume that Perceptor obtained an armour sample as well as an Alligatorcon sample. Spinister, you were fighting Perceptor. Did you see him gather any samples?" Spinister simply makes eye contact with Contrail, not speaking. It's Hairsplitter that speaks up: "Yeeeah...there were approximately 3 earth minutes of our encounter with the Autobots where we lost contact with Perceptor. So....we should probably assume yes." Singe nods gravely. "Ember Mackenzie was there, too." Holy hell, he's helpful. Buzzkill continues digging around inside of the Alligatorcon, her arms gradually becoming caked in grease and all manners of gross, robot fluids. Speaking of robot fluids, this thing smells like something you'd scrape off the bottom of Blot's hairy (YES, HAIRY) ass, holy Cybertron hell is it nasty. Maybe this is why the Autobots didn't take any of these things back with them. Even though the smell is terrible and making what would normally be an enjoyable experience into something gross and disgusting, Buzzkill remains serious and focused, stopping only once to stare at Singe with the most disapproving scowl she can muster. Contrail nods along gravely as Hairsplitter confirms that they should assume that Perceptor has samples. Then she snaps her fingers. Ah-hah, Spinister did run into a human! Contrail wasn't sure what was going on with that; she was busy trying to figure out what the deal with the tiny Galvatron clone was, and then she was busy helping Banshee with Hardhead, and then she was... wrestling alligators. "What was the deal with that human, anyway? I've been somewhat out of the loop. There was this incident with the Alternian Empire and a bucket and... ahem. Well. I've been away for a few years." "He's a scientist and one of the biggest nerds on Earth that transforms into a -microscope-, do you really need to ask that, Contrail?" Carjack chides, though its without his usual extent of snark because he's focused more on the examination. "Interesting. Very interesting." Replacing the scanner with a high intenisty cutting laser-torch he slices off a small piece from the armor and sets the rest of the chunks aside. Then pulls a compartent under the station open, goes over several shelves of chemical flasks, and eventually selects one. "Good thing I had Mixmaster restock the chemicanalysis materials." Grabs a tongs, picks up the shard he cut off, and drops it in the flask. Then yelps and holds it out at arms length when the chemical reacts violently and spewes out several spouts of foam and liquid before dying down. Good thing he had his visor down! Finally, a subject Singe can lend his expertise on: chicks. "Ember Mackenzie-" "Amber." Hairsplitter corrects him. "Amber MacKenzie." "Who names someone Amber? I mean, human names are already stupid sounding, why rub it in?" Singe looks around defiantly, demanding a challenge to his logic. With none presenting themselves, he puffs up his chest and continues. "She's the current "Spike Witwicky" of the Autobot cause. Powerless and easy to kill, and yet consistantly a bigger thorn in our side than most Dinobots." Carjack dumps the concoction out in disposal bin once it's stopped simmering. "Humans aren't dangerous. Humans that throw themselves in harm's way and rally up the Autobots by doing so, THOSE are the ones you have to look out for." "Nebulan names are just as stupid, in my opinion," Buzzkill says, pulling out a bundle of wires that were held together with what would appear to be duct tape. So lazy, whoever built this thing had absolutely no pride. "Take yours for example. Singe. I guess it's supposed to be clever because you turn into a flamethrower?" Although she's been working for only a few minutes, it would seem that the Alligatorcon is already completely empty. It's almost like whoever made it tried to do it with as little complexity as possible, just the bare minimum to create a functional machine. "Too bad it's not clever. At all. Not even in the slightest. It's infuriating, much like yourself." Damn, what a bitch. Contrail rubs her chin, something vaguely pinging at her about this 'Amber MacKenzie'. Then she remembers, and her optics light up, "Oh yes, Misfire was claiming that he has a blood-fued with an 'Amber MacKenzie," and she makes air quotes with her fingers, "Misfire said he wanted the glory of killing the human himself and refused to let Flywheels kill some /different/ human because he insisted that Flywheels was just going to claim that the different human was Amber MacKenzie to steal all the glory." Contrail clearly seems somewhat weirded out as she recounts this whole argument. "So she's a Witwicky-class threat, then. Duly noted. I'll exercise caution if I see her," and are able to identify her. Humans keep changing their outfits. It makes it so hard to figure out which is which! "Any known special powers or weapons?" "At least Singe is descriptive," Carjack chimes in. "Unlike, say, Hairsplitter. What is he, some sort of psychotic hair stylist or something." Meanwhile he's stuffed a different armor chunk into another machine that looks vagely like a microwave. Singe cocks his head at Buzzkill. "Clever, isn't it? No clue how they figured out a designation for an obnoxious killjoy that turns into a frail earth creature. I'm curious if high command had to take a meeting about it. And for the record, Buzzkill. They call me Singe because after Galen took my wife from me, I burned her sister alive." Hairsplitter looks up from his desk as Carjack chimes in. He glances at Spinister, who gives him a nod. The middle management mech stands, and walks over to a small cage housing a strange long haired rabbit looking creature. He opens the cage, and plucks a hair from the rabbit. He then walks to the energy impact testing wall, licks his finger, and using it to wet the hair, he sticks it to the wall. He then walks out of the lab, down the hall. Several moments later, a transformation sound is heard, and a laser blast crackles through the room, striking the wall. Hairsplitter returns, walks to the impact testing wall, and removes what is now two hairs from the wall. He holds one in either hand, makes sure everyone takes note, and drops them. He returns to his desk, and continues typing. "Oh, and I suppose tha little story is supposed to make me think better of you? Like you're some kind of 'bad-ass?' We do worse things than that to people on a daily basis." Buzzkill shakes her head. "You don't impress me. I pity Spinister and Hairsplitter for being forced to accomodate you and your stupidity." Oh snap, Buzzkill must be in a good mood tonight or she just wouldn't say anything. Contrail watches Hairsplitter's display of machismo, one optic wider than the other. That's... impressive shooting. She's not really sure about this whole 'wife' business, though, being a space robot incapable of flushed concupscient feelings. Contrail says haltingly, "So... you... fired her?" She looks from Carjack to Buzzkill, as if checking if she has that right. "How is the analysis of the samples going?" Carjack glances up to the firing test chamber for a moment. "I stand corrected." And like it was nothing turns back to his work. "Eh, the thorough analysis is going to take some time, but the short of it is this armor is actually made of several layers that have been compressed together to the point of becoming one interfused, fiber-like composition. But it's going to take a bit to find out just -what- the layered materials is made out of. Singe takes a step forward towards Buzzkill, face twisting. "You know nothing about me. You've never made the effort, even when we were squadmates. You've written me off as a joke. You don't know what I've done, or what I'm capable of. But I know a few things about you: see, that's sort of our trio's MO- knowing your enemy. And I know things about you. I know you're wearing this 'science badge' to step out of Scorn's shadow. Impress you?" He scowls, fists shaking, before he suddenly turns back towards Spinister, staring. After a moment, he turns back to Buzzkill. "You're not even on my radar, Insecticon." Hairsplitter continues typing. Contrail seems to walk into all the weird drama purely by accident. She thinks back to Misfire and Flywheels's argument over who gets to kill not-Amber. She thinks back to Buzzkill getting mysteriously upset over Scattershot. Now Singe and Buzzkill are getting into a war over... who has the dumber name and an old squadron assignment? Unconsciously, Contrail moves over to stand nearer to Carjack, and she asks him quietly, "While that analysis runs, do you think you could grab an antimatter extraction device and go for a little field trip? There's this finding I want to investigate out in the back end of space..." "Field trip, huh?" Carjack eyes the two bickering for a moment. "Give me a click to get one from the equipment locker, and I'll meet you at the shuttles."